Prior attempts to handle metadata generally allow one to provide relatively static data for a media file or media data. One can expect to have a single location for a picture, for example. Similarly, one can expect to have a single location for a video file or sound file. However, as technology has improved, it has become possible to capture data for media files which is much richer than the metadata envisioned for earlier technology.
Additionally, in prior times, storage was a very expensive resource. Thus, adding a few bytes of data to provide properties for a photograph was reasonable, but adding a lot of information to a photograph would have severely constrained limited storage resources However, storage technology has also improved, allowing for storage of much more data in a camera, for example, than many computers once had access to. Some approaches to handling metadata have been tried, such as those found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,525,578 and U.S. Patent Application No. 20060257122.
However, it may be useful to provide a method of handling metadata on a much larger scale than has been handled in the past.